Scott Lee & Graff: Well Met

I will start this post by saying that I was so impressed with the amount of research that Scott did for this presentation, and by saying that I am amazed by how much information Scott was able to retain in order to give the presentation. Having said that, pompous patriarch or no, I was equally impressed by Graff's ideas and am excited to get into They Say, I Say, and, perhaps, to delve a little deeper, as Scott did, into the other works by Graff. Again, there was a lot of information to digest, which is why I think Graff merits more research on my part.

As with Bizzell and Bartholomae, there's the idea here of writing within a cultural context, but Graff takes it one step further with the idea of "curriculum as conversation" because this means that academic writing has the potential to be dialogues between academic and cultural communities. I also think that this idea expands to many of Graff's other theories, such as writing as clear communication rather than pompous academic discourse. If communication across cultures and academia is the desire, then "lucidity" is the only way to effectively exchange ideas, given the difference in opinion and background that might arise in the conversations ("all texts are argument"). This idea of "lucidity" also could make complex academic ideas more readily available to beginning students, as well as the public, which is an exciting concept.

Furthermore, Graff encourages this cross-cultural debate when he advocates argument across all lines of communication, and he seems to believe that this argument will allow students to gain a deeper understanding of ideas and text. I agreed with the idea discussed in class that teachers tend to water the classroom down to avoid conflict and debate. This, as opposed to the widely-embraced idea that students are in college to learn to think for themselves, keeps students (as citizens) in the socially correct box where they never feel comfortable expressing what they mean in order to avoid argument. Indeed, argument makes people uncomfortable and it has the tendency to be explosive, but it also has the potential to open minds and new avenues of thinking (which Bizzell would advocate). It is also a very good way to understand your own perspective as well as the perspective of your "enemy" ("You can't believe your argument until you are familiar with your enemy's argument").

I do disagree with "I". I have learned to write papers that do not say "I" or "one's" and still express my side with gusto. I think that "I" is fine in personal blogs, fiction, memoir and journals, but I do not feel that it has a place in essays where a specific argument is being presented. I feel that when a writer says "I" the argument cannot be sold the way that it needs to be. The "I" may be a good way to start a first draft, but--rather than going through the first draft and replacing the "I" with "one's"--it might be more effective to teach students to cite specific sources and present facts blended with opinions in a way that the reader will not know the difference. Rhetoric, in  my opinion, as is all good writing, is supposed to be sneaky. The "I" makes it blatant that the essay is someone's opinion backed by some fact (and, possibly, even lopsided and skewed fact), and audiences are not fooled, and they will be, in my opinion, less likely to buy into what the writer is saying. 

Overall, I was impressed with Graff, and I think that, of all the theorists we have studied so far, he presents the pedagogy closest to the one that I would like to embrace.